


Last Call

by galadrieljones



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Finding Safety in Unsuspecting Places, Freedom, Light Dom/sub, Meeting Between Two Equals, Moving On, Post-Canon, Post-Solas, Post-Trespasser, Smut, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 00:34:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13558914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galadrieljones/pseuds/galadrieljones
Summary: Eight months after the Exalted Council, Sene Lavellan, having recently broken up with Abelas, rides south to the Frostback Basin where she runs into Inquisitor Ameridan. He is alive and curious, chivalrous and intrigued. They find comfort in one another, in unsuspecting ways. It is a night that neither of them will ever forget.





	1. Chapter 1

She went back to the Frostback Basin because it was pretty. The pinks and the purples and the sharp angles in the trees. It was like being inside of a fucked-up prism. The jig was over, and Sene was bored deep in her bones, and she felt like she was shaking from the inside out. Every part of her. Vibrating and yet fixed to the earth. No matter how hard she tried, she could not cut enough of her ties to the Inquisition. They needed her always, and she had friends that would not quit. It made her sick to think of all the people who loved her. Who wanted her to be okay. She thought about how one day, she would be okay, for them. Sene was, in her prime, an optimist. But for now–

She had stranded Abelas somewhere on the Storm Coast. After the Exalted Council, she kept trying to be his _easy_ girl, like before when they would travel and hunt, and she would share his beer in the taverns, and they would laugh and smoke by the riverbanks, looking up at the stars in magical shapes that he would bring to yellow, glowing life with his ancient power. And they would have slow, hard sex and she would burrow so deep into his soul that she could taste it from the inside. Sorrow. She was like a small animal, keeping warm, and he was her nest. He was big and kind, and he always thought of her, of what she wanted, what she might think, for that whole year they were together in the wild. After Solas. He would ask her for her opinion, and he would value it, even if he disagreed. He would always fucking ask.

And yet, she’d kept telling herself she wanted to love him even when she knew that she already did. That’s how closed down her heart had become. And when she saw him again, after the Exalted Council, and she remembered what she’d been before, she didn’t know how to be that. He said he didn’t care. He just wanted to talk, to be with her. He understood pain—he had been betrayed as well. He had lost it all. _He was my friend, too,_ said Abelas. _Let me in, Ise. Let me be with you.  
_

But for Sene, it was the same as everything else. Sera and Dorian and Bull, trying to care for her when all she wanted was revenge. And so even as they searched the cities and the ruins of civilization for any trace of Fen’Harel—it took nearly eight months after the Exalted Council for her to convince herself that he was gone. In the wind. Dust. And inside that eight months, she had grown alien to the values this world had cut out for her. How to be a friend, she’d forgotten. How to be loved—she could remember, but she did not feel deserving of love. Her arm itched, and it hurt sometimes. The prosthetic, or whatever you wanted to call it, was strange to look at, like lyrium veins in her skin. Abelas had not cared. The last time she saw him, it was on the Storm Coast with the water ripping onto shore and some psychotic dragon fighting the winds of the sea overhead. He told her he loved her. She told him that she just couldn’t. 

_I just can’t,_ she said. And she sobbed, a retching mess. She felt like a girl, not a woman. And he drew very quiet. He disagreed at first, told her she _could. You can, Ise,_ he said. But when she would not let him touch her, he became dejected and irrevocably sad, and he turned around as she thought he never would, and after a moment of standing there with his back to the gray, unforgiving sea, he left. He walked away, and she stood there with her boots in the sand, the weather loud all around her, yelling straight into her eyes.

She did not scream into the abyss. She was tired. She picked up her shit, broken down, and she hiked back to camp, and she got on her horse, and she rode south down the Imperial Highway until she hit Lothering, and then she hitched west around the lake until she found the mountains. Then, she rode, and she rode until she got all the way to the Frostback Basin. That is where she got off her horse for good, tied it up at Stone-Bear Hold in the stables where she had not been in some time, and she walked into the tavern.

The people there recognized her, but they were afraid. The last time she was there, she’d vanquished a dragon with very little help at all. She was the Inquisitor, tall and brave and red-haired and unforgiving in her reputation. Of course, that part was all bullshit. Sene was, after all of this, just a quiet, tired girl who wanted to go home. But she couldn’t go back to her clan, and she couldn’t go back to Skyhold. Those were like foreign enemies now, full of things and people who would only pry into her, hard, make her think about the girl she’d used to be.

So she was here now, and the tavern was pretty, with candles lighting the walls, and the walls painted a deep blue. She sat down at the bar. She set her bow and her quiver and her heavy jacket on the floor. She pushed the red, curly hair off her face, and she felt very alone, and this allowed her to breathe. She ordered a tall glass of cold gin with ginger, and as she sipped, she thought about the valley below this mountain, how it was pink and weird and full of glowing skulls and devilish spiders and cultists who lived in spiral huts who wanted to cut her head off. This—the idea of people and things who wanted to hunt her, to murder her, this felt better. It gave her a goal, an idea, something to do. She knew deep down that this was unhinged as fuck, but for the moment, she didn’t care. She just drank her gin in silence.

The bartender offered her a small smile. He was a young man, but still a little older than she was. He shined up the glasses without speaking. Most of the people in the tavern sat at the tables where they could play drinking games and have private conversations. A bard played in familiar melodies in a corner in the back by the hearth. There was a man who sat there, watching the bard, leaning back in a long, deep couch that looked made for a king. He was smoking hard, this man, and drinking from a large flagon, and at first, she thought nothing of it. Just a man enjoying a vice deep into the hours of a very cold night in Stone-Bear Hold. But then she saw his ears, and the side of his face, and she thought she knew him. She thought she was seeing a ghost. She almost fell off her chair for fear that she’d officially gone crazy this time. She turned to the bartender who seemed to sense her distress.

“Inquisitor?” he said. “What is it?”

“Who is that man?” she said.

The bartender glanced to the back of the bar. He was pretty—this bartender. With very rosy cheeks, uninfected by her winter of the soul. His muscles were soft. He’d seen no fighting, and she was thankful to find a young man who’d seen no fighting. “Oh,” he said. “You mean Inquisitor Ameridan?”

“Yes,” she said. “That is him. I thought he was dead.”

“So did we,” he said. He shrugged it off then, as if this entire affair were old news. “He came back. Said he had a long nap, but that his body wasn’t ready to die. Spends most of his days here, to be honest.”

“I saw him fade into ashes.”

“Don’t ask me,” said the bartender, shrugging. “Go see for yourself.”

She finished her drink, waited as he poured her another. Then, she got up, and she went over to back the bar in the smoky corner where the bard played for Inquisitor Ameridan. Sene sat down on the long, stately couch. A rich, crushed blue velvet. He barely even registered her presence at first, but then he gave her a long, lazy look, and after a moment, some sense of recognition flickered behind his eyes. He straightened up immediately, motioned for the bard to cease her playing. She obeyed, quickly, nodded, and went away. 

“Inquisitor,” said Ameridan, leaning toward her, as if trying to gain a better look. “It is you.”

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Inquisitor. How the fuck are you alive?”

He smiled at this. A deep, knowing smile. She was brash. He sunk back into the couch and smoked. “Who the fuck knows,” he said. “Magic, I guess. You would be amazed at how eight hundred years of binding spells can put a damper on your power. It took about four months for me to put myself back together again.”

“You were little pieces of dust,” said Sene.

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?” he said. “That I am not who I say I am?”

She thought about the shit she’d seen. She thought about Corypheus. She looked down at her arm, the lyrium pumping through and making it work again. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Nevermind. I was just surprised to see you.”

“As you should be,” said Ameridan. He drank deeply. “Now. What are you doing here, Inquisitor?”

“Don’t call me that, please.”

“Right,” he said. “Of course. What are you doing here, Sene?”

“I was bored,” she said.

“The Inquisitor, _bored?_ I envy you.”

She laughed and drank and looked at the fire. “You probably shouldn’t.”

“Where is your boyfriend?” He sat up, looked around. “According to the gossip, he never leaves your side. Don’t tell me you’re alone.”

“Solas?” she said.

“No, that’s not it,” said Ameridan. He shook out his head, trying to jog his memory. “Big man. Long, yellow hair. The two of you killed that fucking dragon right here. Right here in the basin.”

Sene just stared at him. He smelled like smoke and booze, and he was a big elf, but not as big as the elves she was used to. She couldn’t tell how old he was. Maybe forty. “Abelas,” she said.

“Yes, Abelas,” said Ameridan. “Where is Abelas?”

“Abelas and I broke up.”

He glanced at her, the joint hitched to his mouth. But it had lost its flame, and so he fished out another from his pocket and lit it with a palm full of fire. He inhaled, exhaled the smoke over her head. Then, he held it out, an offering. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

She shrugged. She took the joint, looked it over. It smelled typical, even weak. She took a hit, let the smoke soak her insides and turn her to a mush of wet leaves. “Thank you.”

“Who’s Solas?”

“What?”

“ _Who is Solas?_ ”

She gave him back the joint. She set her gin down on the table in front of her, and she pulled her knees up to her chest. “Just an asshole,” she said.

“Ah,” said Ameridan. “Nevermind.”

“What have you been up to?” said Sene, chin resting on her knees, changing the subject. The smoke had loosened her up a little. Calmed her even. It made her think of riverbanks. “All this time. You just live here now? Why don’t you leave?”

“And go where?” said Ameridan. “Back to the Dales?”

She blushed, looked away. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” he said. “ _You_ live in the fallout, Sene. You may not wear your vallaslin anymore, but you are a Dalish elf. I’ve heard the stories.”

“If you’ve heard the stories, then you must know about Solas.”

“No,” he said, looking at her, earnest. She could see the lines on his face, a man who’d lived hard. “I don’t know that name. I know there was a tall elf who walked by your side. I assumed that was the elf I’d met in the temple.”

Sene sighed at this. Somewhere behind her, raucous laughter broke out and somebody tipped their drink off the table. The bard continued to play her winter melodies. “I shouldn’t be here,” Sene said after a moment. “I don’t know where I should be.”

“I hear you,” said Ameridan.

They sat for a while, beside one another. When Sene ran out of gin, the bartender brought one more, but she didn’t touch it at first. Ameridan seemed like a season unending. Like he’d gone on too far. He wished to be dead, a leaf in decay, and yet there he was. Drinking, smoking. It was like a broken record, all the men she knew. All of them reduced to their vices. She thought about Telana, the woman he’d loved once, and how she’d felt her pain in that Fade memory. She’d read more about her in Professor Kenric’s books. It was to pass the time. The story was fascinating, but she could see now—he was just a man. And he was cracked and peeling around the edges. And she thought about how, one day, some asshole would read about her in a book, and find her fascinating. The _Tall Red Elf._ The Inquisitor who saved the world but who could not even keep her friends.

At some point, Ameridan took out a deck of cards. He asked Sene if she wanted to play. “I’m bored now,” he said. “And you’re here. Shall we?”

She smiled at this. It was a welcome gesture. The bard still played as the night went on. She could hear the bartender, conversing with a few patrons at the counter. _Is that THEE Inquisitor,_ one of them said. The bartender was glib. He was funny, despite his youth. _It’s BOTH of them,_ he said. _But don’t tell them I told you that. I like my head, thank you very much._

Sene laughed to herself as she sipped her gin. Ameridan just watched her. How she was easy-going, this girl. She probably thought she’d been sealed shut a long time ago. But the world was full of assholes and ex-boyfriends and people who make you feel like your life is over, when in reality, it is merely a blip. A fucking scratch in the armor. Even real love—real, true love can be lost, and found again. He had no intention of falling in love, but he saw a woman here, and she was his equal in every way. Worthy of his time, and he of hers. He felt it. Like a warm dance, something new. Fuck, it had been a very long time since he’d done anything new.

He shuffled the cards, smoked, set the joint in the ashtray to burn out for later. “Diamond Back,” he said, looking right at her. “Do you know it?”

Green eyes, she smiled. “Yes,” she said, looking at the cards. She sipped her gin. A drink of the forest, of the rivers and the Dales.

He handed her the deck, his eyes open and clear, piercing into her through the white of the smoky stone night. “Your deal,” he said, “Inquisitor Lavellan.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Last call, Inquisitor,” said the bartender. An hour had gone by. He’d come over to the fire and the long, blue couch. He placed his hand on Ameridan’s shoulder—a bold move, one that communicated an old-fashioned understanding between them. “Should I lock up? Or are you expecting someone.”

Ameridan, shuffling the cards with a smoke pressed between his lips, just shook his head. “No one,” he said. “Go on.”

“Very good,” said the bartender. He glanced passed Ameridan now, to Sene, still nervous. “Anything else I can get for you—er—Inquisitor?”

Sene smiled, real bright. Lots of teeth. “No thank you,” she said. “Do you need any help cleaning up?”

The bartender was miffed by this proposition. Ameridan started to laugh.

“What?” said Sene.

“Nothing,” said Ameridan. “Put your belt on. We’re finished here.”

“I never removed my belt,” she said.

“You should have,” he said. “I won that last hand.”

“And I won the previous four. Perhaps you should remove your belt?”

“I’ve got endless money and resources to put on the line, Sene. You cannot strip me of my _belt_ during Diamond Back.”

“Same here.”

He smirked.

The bartender was blushing. He had a blue towel tossed over his shoulder, and he looked even younger back here, in the light from the hearth. “All right,” he said. “Just remember to put out the fire.”

“Can do,” said Ameridan.

The bartender went back to setting all the chairs on top of the tables. The room was empty, the broken glass and muddy footprints mopped up, the heavy wooden bar shined and pristine. Sene admired all the bottles on the shelves and how clean they were. The bartender left in quiet fashion, wearing a jacket and lighting a smoke.

Once he was gone, Ameridan stood from the couch and stretched. She saw how tall he was—not as tall as Abelas, or Solas for that matter. But he was tall, several inches taller than her, and she was 5’10”. She supposed a dragon hunter from the Dales would have had to be big, in some respect. But she could see, too, how he was not as big as he’d used to be. Like he’d lost weight, muscle mass. His shoulders were massive, and so was his wingspan, but his shirt hung off of him a little bit in a way that was telling. She didn’t want to leave. She wondered what was going to happen next.

“Come on,” he said to her.

“Where are we going?” she said.

The room smelled like booze and flowers. He left the couch, took the chairs off one of the tables in the center of the tavern, lit a couple candles, told her to have a seat. “Right here,” he said. “Unless you’re through with me.”

“What?” she said. “Not at all.”

She felt suddenly too tall as she left the couch, went to the table, and pulled out the wooden chair to sit down. On the couch, she could sink into the cushions. But out here, in the open, she was still Sene. He was back behind the bar now, examining the clean bottles, searching for a label he liked. When he found one, he popped the cork and brought it over with two glass cups. It was champage.

“Champagne?” she said, surprised.

“Champagne is new to me,” he said. “I never had it before I woke up here.”

“I like it, too.”

“Good,” he said. He poured carefully, measuring the foam. They touched their glasses and drank.

Outside, the wind picked up. You could hear it whistling through the chimney as the night wolves came awake in the valley below.

“So,” said Ameridan. He was leaning in his chair now with one arm flung over the back. He had one leg crossed over the other in casual demeanor.

“So,” said Sene.

“Now that I have you here, I feel the intense need to get to know you. It is pleasurable.”

“I’ve been here for over an hour.”

“Yes, but that was cards.” He took a drink. “Now, we’re alone, and we’re at a table. The stakes are always much higher when sitting at a table, don’t you think?”

“I suppose,” she said. She took a long drink. The champagne was good. Very crisp, very dry. “What do you want to know about me?”

He watched her closely over the brim of his glass. His hair was knotted at the back of his head. He was a man of his focus, but he was also intrigued. “How old are you,” he said.

“How old do you think I am?” she said.

He studied her. “Twenty-five,” he said. “Perhaps a little younger. The freckles are throwing me off.”

“I’m twenty-four.”

“Very good.”

“How old are you?” said Sene.

This made him laugh. “Too old for you, _da’len_.”

She grinned into her cup. “You can’t be that old.”

  “I suppose all is relative.”

“I’ve known ancient elves, _ha’hren,_ ” she said. “You may think you’re something, but you’re not a man of twenty-nine with an 8,000-year-old soul.” She drank.

“I’m a man of forty-two with an 800-year-old soul,” said Ameridan. “Will that suffice?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea what suffices anymore. We’re both alive, are we not? That’s a start.”

“A weary sentiment for such a new elf.”

“New in body alone,” said Sene.

He leaned forward then, both feet on the floor. He set his elbows on the table. “Is that man you travel with—who helped you slay Wintersbreath—is he an ancient elf?”

Sene nodded.

Ameridan made a low whistle.

“What’s the matter?” she said.

“That is major baggage,” he said. “Even for you.”

“There is nothing wrong with him,” said Sene, defensive. “He’s a little traumatized, but so am I.”

“Why did you break up?”

She shrugged again, a common default state. She peered down into her glass like perhaps the bubbles might pop all in chorus, sing on the answer to her whole stupid life. “I don’t know.”

“I see,” said Ameridan.

“He loves me,” she said, earnest. “I’ll only end up hurting him.”

“It sounds like you already did.”

“What about you?” said Sene, running a finger around the rim of her glass. “And Telana.” Ameridan seemed uncomfortable when she glanced up. A metal trap of emotion. It made her think of Solas. She sighed. “Nevermind.”

“You turn the tables so quickly,” he said, smiling, weary, down at his own scarred knuckles. “I had heard you were a merciful woman.”

 “I am,” she said. “I didn’t mean to turn the tables. I was just wondering. We don’t have to talk about her.”

“You don’t seem to understand, _lethal’lan_ ,” said Ameridan. He reached into his pocket, flipped a coin and set it on the table in front of him.

“Understand what?”

“Women are adaptable creatures.” He pressed his thumb to the coin. “You embrace change. It is in your biology. It is why you are so easy to love. But men are yoked to all that was. Carrying everything with them like desperate mules for punishment. I am weighed down, Sene. And very mean.”

“You say that like it’s some sort of revelation,” said Sene, unimpressed. “It is nothing new. You just seem like you could use a friend. And you’re not mean.”

He glanced up at her, both saddened and interested by her observation. “You are wise.”

“Perhaps that is why I cannot help but get mixed up with ancient men.”

“I am not ancient.”

“You are a little ancient.”

He smirked, staring now. “May I be forward.”

“Of course.”

“You’re pretty,” he said.

She took a long, hard drink. It stung, but it made her happy. “I know,” she said.

“How do you know?” he said. “I’m curious. Do you just look in the mirror and see a pretty woman?”

“Sometimes,” said Sene. “I’m not an idiot. And a lot of men like you have told me so.”

“There are no men like me.” He picked up the coin, pocketed it once more.

“Excuse me?”

“I am neither ancient, nor entirely new. Not really. And to you, right now, Inquisitor-on-the-run, nobody knows you better than I do. What you have been through, who you are, what you want. What you’ve seen. That is why you are still here.”

“I’m here because I want to be,” she said. She leaned over the table, searching. “What is that coin?”

“An heirloom,” said Ameridan. He leaned on his elbows once more, staring right at her. “Tell me about your life before the Inquisition.”

“Why?”

“I want to know.”

 “I grew up on a farm,” she said, relaxing her posture. My clan is rich.”

“You’re shitting me,” said Ameridan.

“No, I’m not,” said Sene. “We don’t all migrate and live in the woods. Many Dalish clans are stationary now. They farm, and they do well.”

“What does your clan farm?”

“Wheat,” she said. “Corn. And grapes.”

“Vintners?”

“Yes. But mostly distillers,” said Sene. “Most of our capitol, outside real estate, comes from liquor distribution. In the Free Marches, we run it all.”

“Mythal’s tits,” said Ameridan, incredulous. “I don’t believe it.”

This almost made Sene laugh.

He refilled her glass, and then his own. The room was cooling off now. The hearthfire had begun to die. He watched her. “You know,” he said, taking a drink. “I once slew a dragon on a farm.”

“Really?” said Sene.

“Indeed. I saved the farmer, his wife, and their two daughters.”

“Very heroic,” said Sene.

“Yes, well. I felt the sudden need to impress you,” he said. “A woman of such influence and means as yourself.”

“I’m just me,” said Sene. “I don’t care about any of that shit.”

“I know.”

“How many dragons have you killed?”

He pondered this, seriously. “I have no idea,” he said. “Dozens. Hundreds.”

“Holy shit.”

“And you.”

She shrugged. “Maybe nine?”

“Not bad for a girl.”

She reached over the table, shoved him in the shoulder. “Shh.”

He laughed.

She sat back in her chair then and drank, blushing a little. With the room cooling off, she could feel her hair turning to frizz. A moment passed. Ameridan had begun to shuffle the cards again. But it was idle, keeping his hands busy. He had no interest in starting up another game.

“So,” said Sene.

“Yes.”

“You live upstairs?”

“I do.”

“Hmm.”

“Where do you live?” He looked at her.

The question was confusing at first. It took her off guard. Her instinct was to become defensive, but she didn’t know why this was. She could tell he was being earnest. “Nowhere really,” she said.

“Where did you live with Abelas?”

“We just sort of…traveled around? We lived in our tent.”

He pocketed the cards, lit another joint with a bit of flame from the palm of his hand. “That is desperately romantic,” he said. He offered her the joint, but she declined. He took a long hit. “You should go back to him.”

“Why?” she said.

“Because you talk about him like he is the fabric of your reality. You defend him. You think of him fondly, even as he is your ex.”

“I bear no ill will toward him.”

“You still love him.”

“Just let it be,” she said, getting itchy. “Please. I’m here now. This is where I am.”

“And I am grateful,” said Ameridan. “It has been a long time since I’ve had a meaningful conversation with anyone, let alone a woman like you.”

Sene rolled her eyes.

“Is there a problem?”

“A woman like me?” she said. “What does that mean. Red-haired? Pretty? _Special?_ ”

“Worthy,” said Ameridan. He blew a smoke ring into the air, casual, and he leaned back in his chair again to admire its transience, its chimeric beauty until it was lost.

Sene did not expect this word. “Worthy?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Worthy of you?”

“Yes,” he said, staring at her through a haze of white smoke. “Am I worthy of you, Inquisitor?”

She watched him, the pale, sharp eyes. Like metal, like lightning glass. “Yes,” she said.

“Very good,” he said. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

“I’m not looking for another man to fall in love with,” said Sene. “I don’t have that in me.”

“And I am not looking for another woman to fall in love with,” he said. “I am long past love, _lethal’lan_.” He studied the tip of the joint, it’s slow burn. He snapped his fingers, once, and it went out, and he set it down on the table. “But.”

“But?”

“I do like you,” he said.

“You do?”

His eyes sort of flickered in her direction. She kept forgetting he was a mage. “Very much.”

He straightened up then, decisive, and he picked up the table from the ground with both hands—made it seem a lot lighter than it actually was. He moved it carefully, about ten inches to the left. Now, there was nothing between them.

Sene did not budge. “My wine,” she said.

“I have more wine,” he said. “Upstairs.”

Sene was burning up inside like a piece of fucking volcanic rock. “You’re asking me to come upstairs?”

“Yes,” he said. “I am.”

They were both still sitting in their chairs in the fading, woodfire winter tavern. The air seemed full of their secrets. His posture was so fucking casual. He had his hands in his pockets as he watched her, curious, waiting—Ameridan. There was nothing she could do, it seemed, to put him off, or annoy him. Like he was finished with the world, the wind and the wolves outside, anywhere but this tavern. He was finished. But he liked her. She had come in out of the cold and given him something to do, something to study. She was used to this sort of thing with these sorts of men, but he was genuine in this way that she could only chalk up to his very particular situation—he was supposed to be dead. He was not Solas or Abelas, who’d slept, knowingly, in the Fade for thousands of years. He had sacrificed what he thought was his entire life to end a threat on his people that he could not have foreseen. And now, here he was, his burden lifted, replaced by another. The woman he loved was dead. Everyone he’d ever known was dead. Everyone he could relate to on any meaningful level at all was dead.

Everyone but her.

“I thought I was too young for you,” she said.

He smiled, leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees. “If you’re not interested, I completely understand.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested.”

“Then what do you say?” he said.

She was Sene. She saw something she wanted, something she liked, something real, and she acted. She pushed her chair forward until their knees were almost touching. He was surprised by how forward she could be, but he did not move. She pushed her hands through his hair, smoothed them past the long, warm tips of his ears. He closed his eyes at her touch, took a deep breath. She kissed him after that, and he lifted off his chair a little—just a little, meeting her halfway, like the kiss was dragging him straight out of some hellcage inside and bursting his heart into wet, warm pieces. He put his hands into her hair. It was every bit as big and red as he’d been led to believe, and the deeper their kiss went, the more it seemed to grow.

Their lips parted. The room was a low, quiet place, emptied of consequence. Eyes closed, their foreheads touched. “I will take that as a yes,” said Ameridan, like he’d already lost his breath.

She smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

Upstairs, there was wine. Sene saw several bottles, a few open on the bureau. The room was clean, well-maintained. There were potted plants in the windowsill—exotic things, like royal elfroot and a kind of purple flower she’d never seen before. He had a blue watering can. This was enchanting. A blue watering can. It drew her intensely. She wanted to understand him. Then, she wondered, briefly, and for whatever reason, as he closed the door behind them in his room above the tavern, what it would have been like to be with a normal man. Would they have normal interests, do normal things? What did that mean? Was there even such a thing? The irony almost put her over, made her laugh. A normal man—like the bartender. He was about her age. That was a normal man. He was afraid of her and everything she stood for.

She turned away from the window, the moonlight pouring in like some sort of witchcraft. Ameridan was standing in front of the door. He smirked when he saw her standing there, thinking about his watering can.

“Are you reading my mind?” she said.

“Of course not,” he said. “I cannot read minds, _lethal’lan_.”

“Then what are you thinking?”

He raised his eyebrows. “What am I thinking?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not thinking anything. My thoughts are over there.”

“Over where?”

“They’re on the windowsill. With my blue watering can.”

This incited something. She approached him, got closer. She didn’t know what to do. She only knew that she was full of feelings, and what she wanted. “Are we supposed to drink wine?” she said.

“We aren’t supposed to do anything,” he said.

She kissed him, hard. She pressed his back into the door. It made a loud noise. She felt him yield to her. He was big and strong, and yet he yielded to her, despite everything, and his hands were swimming in her hair.

But then, she felt one of his hands leave her hair. She felt one of his hands on her wrist.

“Sene,” he whispered into her ear.

She had her hand on his cock. She had hardly even noticed. Her hand was already down the front of his pants, holding him, gripping him hard. She stopped right away. “What’s wrong?” she said.

He took a long, ragged breath. He was smiling. She could hear it in his voice. “Nothing is wrong,” he said.

“Then what is it?”

He pushed some of the hair out of her eyes, held her head in the palm of his great big dragon-hunting hand. He looked at her. He was earnest in his intentions and handsome, and right there. “Can I be honest.”

“Please.”

“Sene,” he breathed, closing his eyes. “My body is so touch-starved—you cannot possibly understand. Your hand, and what it’s doing. I can’t even remember.”

She felt him, holding her close. The vulnerability in his voice—it undid her. But he was so fucking hard, almost bursting, and she looked down at where she held him, fast. His was a beautiful instrument. They all seemed to be, didn’t they?—all of these men and their beautiful instruments. “Go slower?” she said, catching on.

“Yes,” he said. He almost started laughing. “Unless you want this to last all of forty-five seconds, for the love of the gods, go slower.”

She smiled. His honesty drew her so hard. She kissed him. “Okay,” she said.

He let go of her wrist. She slowed down. She just held him there, firm but still. After a moment, she rocked him back and forth. Just a little. She listened to his breathing, watched the changes and the little movements in his face. He was concentrating very hard. His breaths was even and long. She wanted him to open his eyes, so she traced the thumb of her left hand over his eyelids. He sensed her, and he obeyed, and as he opened his eyes, he put the hair behind her ear, and he gazed at her, long and grateful.

“Better?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“What do you feel?”

“I feel you.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes,” he said.

And with this, it was if he’d finally found his bearings. Like he just needed a moment to remember what it was—what it was to be with a woman. He held her hard by the hair, and he pressed her backward, stumbling, until they found the bed. She felt the cool covers hit the backs of her knees, and then she went down, soft to her back, and he had her out of her britches, out of her leather trousers, down to her underwear, and then they were off, too, and she was wide open in the tavern air. The speed with which this had happened—it made her needful.

But _he_ had slowed down now. He was on his knees before her, admiring. She was all reds and pinks, and like everything—everything, that whole night, the whole thing, with the cards and the conversation, her sipping her gin in the light from the fire—it was so new. So different.

“Can I touch you?” he said.

She nodded, slowly.

It was so tender at first. A kind of worship, to say the least, but exploratory. The bedsheets gathered into her hands, she could hear his breathing, still slow, still steady. Hers quickened as her eyes fell open, and she watched as he lowered himself, she felt as his lips touched the insides of each one of her freckled thighs. She felt his breath, warm, and then she felt his tongue, and then she felt everything as he buried his face so deep between her legs, she squeaked and whimpered, like an animal. She had not expected this. He was hungry, swallowing her up—slow, savoring, and then a deep, building voracity. He held her hips to the mattress and he explored her. She got lost in the ecstasy. She came quickly, high and hard, and she didn’t know what to do or how to feel, it had come so fast, but it was ecstatic, and she knew she was loud, but she didn’t care.

Meanwhile, he could feel her—like electricity, filling his bones from elbows to knee caps. She swore, unholy— _shit, fuck, Ameridan—_ she said his name. He never lost control—he was not that kind of man, but he let go of something, something he’d been harboring inside as he drank deeply from Sene. Her red hair filled with dreams and blue energy fireflies. It was all made of his pent-up magical unrest. The whole room flickered around them like the inside of a blue fire. Then, she came again. He was certain. She was stronger than he could have imagined, and he had to use real strength to hold her to the bed.

Sene was not used to such displays in the bedroom. All of her men had been mages, but they’d never done it like this, and it was different, and it was new and beautiful, and it felt good like sparks on the surface of her skin. She felt it on the back of her neck like static electricity. She was finishing, again, totally mangled. He brought her down. He was thoughtful and slow. The entire experience had satiated them both, in a small way. He released his tongue, his mouth, crawled closer, kissed her on each rib. She held him by the ears, probably harder than she’d realized, thankful, floating high to the heavenly ceiling. Then he was above her, looking down at her, and she saw that he was still fully-clothed, and she yanked his shirt off as gentle as she could, but it was not gentle. He pressed his mouth to hers again, searching. Their chests touched. The blue magic around them had faded, but the room was still cast in a low, marshy haze. Everything dark, like nature.

Sene caught her breath, surfaced, and she watched him as he closed his eyes and collected himself. She felt her way down his hard body, felt him lift his knees to step outside of his trousers, one leg at a time. She took hold of him again—that beautiful instrument, and she situated him and herself so that he pressed against the threshold inside of her. Only just. And she was so sensitive from the onslaught of his mouth. She waited and gave him the reins. His breath deepened. He opened his eyes. She watched him gather his focus, all into one place. He was saving himself up—full of reverence for the act. She had seen her lovers do this before, and she knew more about men now and what this meant. She placed her palms on his cheeks. They looked at each other.

“Does it feel good?” she said, and she smiled.

He smiled as well, ragged, and he just nodded, and he closed his eyes again, his hair falling down in pieces. He then eased himself inside of her, one long, slow thrust until all space between them disappeared. And their bodies overlapped—the singularity. She lost her breath as he filled her. All parts of her pressing inward as if to say, _Never leave._

She wrapped her arms around him to keep him close to her. She did not urge him forward—to go fast or slow. Very soon, he began—and yes, it was slow at first as he caught his breath, and he reined himself in, hard, but then he let go, like he had found his control, and he wrapped his hands around the backs of her shoulders and he thrust, again and again, until he was fucking her hard into the bedsheets. But it was this special place—like their auras combined, as he seemed conscious with every movement, every way he drove deeper, and he kissed her lashes, and then he buried his face into her neck and went free. The fireflies pulsed in the ceiling like space. He made a nest in her hair, his breathing fast but even. She held him hard, and at some point, he slowed down, and she opened her eyes to look at him, and he was studying the dips in her neck, in her chest, placing his hand there, feeling her heart beat as he rested inside her, and he took a deep breath, and he asked her a question.

“May I give you instruction, Inquisitor?” he said, studying the grooves beneath her collar bones with his thumb.

“Instruction?” she breathed.

“Yes,” he said. “Nothing unusual. I promise.”

She smiled at this—this sort of beautiful tradition. How he had brought forth his chivalry and _asked_ permission to take control. “Sure,” she said, smiling. “What would you like me to do?”

“Turn over,” he said.

She inhaled, nodded. This was easy. They both braced as he pulled out of her—it was this aching withdrawal. She turned onto her stomach, slowly. She felt his hands on her back right away, in the dip between her rib cage and her hip bones. He made many noises, grunts and whimpers that communicated his full range of satisfaction and wonder.

“On your hands and knees,” he said.

She obeyed.

“Arch your back. Let me see all of you.”

She obeyed.

He studied her, his face close, hardened in its focus. She had to crane her neck to to see him. She wanted to see. But mostly, it was just that she could feel his breath, and she squeezed her eyes shut, and she thought she might feel his mouth on her once more, and then she did. Like a long, deep kiss. She sort of spasmed, and he held her tight, and then he felt into her—one finger, then two, and he pushed until she crumpled, watching, rapt, as if simply to understand, to experience her insides from all angles. He’d only ever been with Telana before this. One woman for all of his years. The newness of Sene in this brand new life—it undid him and it made him grateful.

“Thank you,” he said, his fingers still inside of her. He kissed her lower back, right in the dip, until she shivered.

“For what,” she said. She turned her head to look at him, and she even reached back with one hand to pick up his face and hold it there. “I’m just me.”

He smiled at this. “I know,” he said. “I just mean—for letting me see.”

She put her face back to the bedsheets. She was smiling, hard, to herself and to no one. “You are welcome,” she said.

He smoothed his hands to her hips now, removing his fingers from her insides, and he got to his knees. He studied. She watched then, as he fit himself inside her once more. He thrust, slowly, his face unflinching. He pulled back. Thrust. Pulled back. She moaned. It was slow. She closed her eyes and nestled her cheek to the bedsheets, and she felt very good and very full and very warm. The fireflies of Ameridan’s magic were a steady fixture now, and they made the room feel beautiful as he fucked her. Like a marsh in summer.

He could pull back the curtain, she thought. He could reveal her insides as they truly were. What she wanted. Only him. He was her equal. Pretty lights and warm seasons, letting go. He was a man she could need and then quickly forget as he absorbed her angst and cancelled it out with his own. He was just a man. It was blinding. She liked him and his canny disposition. How he was simpler in his desires—simply to _have_ and to _see._ One night. And she knew this in her bones. That this was it—this was everything there would ever be between them. Because it was many things. It was hard and soft, and good and pure.

It was not riverbanks. It was not an exchange of loyalties. It was comfort, but it was not comfort in the shape of nature in the aftermath. It was not falling until you jerk yourself awake.

It was not forever. It was not love. Sene had never slept with a man before who she did not love. But this was not love. Not this time. It was neither love, nor sorrow. But it felt good, and for the night, she was free.


	4. Chapter 4

She’d gone downstairs. She needed to pee and get her things. She didn’t like that she’d left her bow in the tavern all alone. It was like an appendage those days. She couldn’t afford to lose anymore of those and the attachment had grown stubborn.

When she came back into the room, Ameridan had lit a joint, and there were these straight, heavy bars of light coming in off the moon through the window with the potted plants and the blue watering can. She was wrapped in a sheet, but she dropped it to her waist when she sat back down on the bed. He was leaning against the headboard, smoking as he stared out the window at the aggressive night sky. It was big here—the sky—and the stars seemed lower to the ground somehow, like they might get caught in the treetops.

“Sene,” he said, and he looked at her.

“Yeah?”

He took a huge hit off the joint. Huge, like it would make things easier, whatever he had to say next.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“It’s been eight hundred years since I last did this. I lost my composure in the end. I’m sorry.”

She just smiled. “What?”

“Men and women dance. Women get pregnant.”

His earnest nature kept whooshing her hair back, putting her off balance. She blinked. “Oh,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’m covered. I would have said something if I weren’t.”

“You’re covered?”

“It’s different now,” she said. “I take a little potion. Like, birth control.”

This astounded him. He passed her the joint. “That is a revelation,” he said. He put his head back to the heavy wood of the headboard, closed his eyes. “I never would have thought.”

“Mages did it,” she said.

“Of course they did.”

She took a hit, just a little one. The plant was smooth and mild, the same as what they’d had downstairs in the tavern. She passed it back to him. She was sitting there with her legs folded up beside Inquisitor Ameridan. He was spent and exposed, stark naked and unashamed, and all of his parts were good parts, and they all fit together nicely in the shape of a well-constructed man. He reached one of his big paws over and planted it on her freckled thigh. His hands were callused and rough. “Would you like that wine now?” he said.

“Sure,” she said.

He smirked, got up slowly, went to the little table by the window. He uncorked a bottle of red, but then he seemed struck by some new curiosity. “You grew up on a vineyard,” he said.

“Yes,” said Sene.

“That means you know your wine.”

“Not really.”

He set the bottle down on the table. “Do you have a preference?”

She sort of stretched up on her knees to see. “I like the pink stuff,” she said. “With bubbles.”

He smirked. “Rosé?”

“Yes.”

“I have one of those. It’s not cold though.”

She shrugged. “The red is fine.”

He nodded, then knelt down and opened a little cupboard on the floor under the table. He took a dusty bottle stored upright on the bottom shelf. He got up and grabbed two glasses. He came back to the bed, and the bottle was a warm Rosé.

“It’s warm,” she said. “Nobody likes warm Rosé.”

But he wasn’t listening. He set down the glasses and as he got back into bed, he wrapped both of his massive hands around the bottle and closed his eyes—just for a moment. When he opened them again, he smiled, and he handed the bottle to Sene. It was cold.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“Magic, lethal’lan. You forget so soon?”

She blushed. He took the bottle back and unscrewed the cork and poured them each a glass. “Here’s to the Inquisition,” he said. “And all that it has taken from our weary souls.”

“Cheers,” she said.

They drank and looked at the moon.

After a little while of their pleasant quietude, Ameridan swirled the wine around in his glass and polished it off. He poured himself another and looked at her. “May I ask you a question?” he said.

“You don’t have to ask me permission to ask me a question, Ameridan,” she said. “Just ask.”

He smiled. “How old were you, when you became Inquisitor.”

“Nineteen,” she said. She held out her glass. She needed a refill, too.

He obliged. He shifted toward her in the sheets. “Did you want it?”

“I had no choice,” she said. “I had this magic in my hand—I was the only one who could close the rifts in the Veil. It just—it ended up putting me in charge. It wasn’t that bad.” She took a long drink. “For a while.”

He set the bottle on his bedside table, and he put out the joint. “May I see it?” he said. “Your arm.”

“You’ve seen it,” she said. She became hidden. She became self-conscious. She was Sene, and many people thought she was an open book, but she was only an open book if she wanted to be.

Ameridan understood this. “You do not have to trust me, Sene,” he said. “You do not have to show me. I was just asking.”

“But I trust you,” she said. “I do. I would never—I would never do what we just did with someone I didn’t trust.” She felt sick and tired of hiding then. She took a long drink from her wine, felt the bubbles popping in her skull. The room was hazy with the evening windows, the light and the magical lanterns in the corners of the ceiling. She got up onto her kness and stradled him, settling in his lap as he took a deep and careful breath, backing gently into the headboard. There was just a thin sheet between them. Crisp blue linen that smelled like river flowers, and the whole room—the windowsill and the sheets—it was like he kept it immaculate, like he spent a great deal of time grooming its appearance. But he had _things._ He had a lot of pretty, old weaponry mounted on the walls. He had books in handmade bookshelves and a yellow throw rug on the floor.

He set down his glass. He placed one hand on each of her thighs—it was not sex, not yet, just his touch. He studied her and she felt him waiting, patient, as she gave him her left hand.

He held it gently. He turned it over so that he could see her palm and her forearm. The lyrium there, in artistic striations beneath her skin, glowed low and blue and magical. It otherwise looked like any other arm. It was, after all, her arm—just with some new additions. Upgrades to save it forever. But it still itched. Sometimes, she became disoriented and lost all sense of its existence.

“This is lyrium,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt?”

She shrugged. “A little, sometimes. After fighting, or hunting. When I use it a lot.”

“This is your bow arm.”

She nodded. “It’s better than it was. I assure you. At first—at first, it hurt so bad. It kept me up at night.”

He ran his hands over her skin, pressed his thumb to the inside of her wrist, and then he smoothed his fingers into hers. “You know, at first I hardly noticed. I know the stories, but all I saw was the scarring. It’s faint. And you’ve seen me, Sene. Scarring is just an occupational hazard. And the lyrium—it just looks like vallaslin.”

“I don’t care about it anymore,” she said.

“Yes you do.”

She looked at him. He was right.

“Nineteen is too young to be made Inquisitor,” said Ameridan, still studying her hand, the freckled knuckles, the scars like twisted tattoos. “I was thirty-five. Even I felt too young.”

“You’re still young,” she said. “Forty-two, that’s nothing, Ameridan.”

He smiled, gave her back her arm. He smoothed his hands up and down her thighs, up the slope of her hips, palming her waist. His hands were so big, he could palm her waist and yet reach up with his thumbs, press them over her tiny archer’s tits, past the pale pink of her nipples, and she watched, rapt, as he did this, and the vallaslin on his face was pale but there. It seemed faded after so many years. This happened. It had happened to her parents—the blood writing faded like anything else. She would never know. Hers was gone.

Ameridan’s hands were so big, she thought, his arms so long. It was almost like, after all those years in the tank with a dragon god, he’d absorbed a part of it, grown tough skin and a set of heavy wings. Weighing him down. But this was stupid. He was just a man. And she had been with men of much stranger, more unpleasant circumstances than his—Abelas, whose vallaslin went all over his body, everywhere. Everywhere. The first time they slept together, she was sitting on top of him just like this, and she remembered untying the laces at his waist, and seeing the vallaslin, how it spread, beautifully, but like a disease. She just wanted to make him feel good that night, and then it went on and on and on and on. Until she just said fuck it, and she fell in love with him.

He had loved her back enough to stay. He told her as much about Solas as he could remember. They traveled the Dales together like it was nothing at all. She wished she could unsee Solas and all he had unleashed upon her at the stupid fucking Exalted Council. That day—it had ruined her whole life.

Or maybe not. She looked at Ameridan now. He had mastered her body in a single evening, and she couldn’t tell if he wanted more, but she knew that she did. He held his cards very close to his vest, and he was thoughtful, and terribly disciplined even as his huge hands continued to explore her body. He was half-hard beneath her. She could feel it. But it was like a gentle stasis. Half-hard. Of course he was. Men were more fluid than she ever knew before—or at least that was what she had learned those past few years. They move in and out of these moments—sex for them, it was not just fucking. It was a whole spectrum of importance and foreplay and feelings. They were not wild, or in need of taming. They could be broken, sensitive creatures just like her. She put the hair behind his ear. He smiled at this, her soft touch.

“I have not given up, lethal’lan,” he said. “That is certain. Don’t worry about me.”

“What do you want, Ameridan?”

It was a serious question. He thought hard. “I want this,” he said. “I want you, tonight. I want to wake up in the morning.”

“What about beyond that. I don’t mean me—I just mean, in general.”

“I am beyond the notion of cosmic desire, Sene.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that anything I want, it is to fill the void of a single moment. There is very little I have not experienced that I still desire to experience. I have befriended men. I have drank, swore, done all manner of drugs and slain all manner of dragons. That was my passion, before the Inquisition. It was what I did. I have loved a woman, and I have been loved by a woman. I have sacrificed myself and my love for my duty, and I have lived to tell the tale.”

“You talk about your life as if it is in the past. You’re not a ghost.”

But he seemed to see right through her. He knew what she was after. “There is no saving me, Sene,” he said. He had moved his hands up to her neck now, studying the tight coils of her red hair. “I do not desire to be saved.”

“I understand,” she said.

“This is important,” he said. He looked right at her. “I do not desire punishment, nor do I desire improvement or change. I am everything that I will ever be, and I have made my peace with that, and I live comfortably. Does that concern you?”

“No.”

“You look stunned.”

“I’m not,” she said. She placed her hands on his chest. “I am just used to men burying their sadness inside me, and their secrets. That’s all.”

“I have no sadness,” he said. “Not anymore. And I have no secrets. Everything there is to know about me, you have known and experienced tonight.”

“That’s all?” she said. “This is just sex then?”

He smiled. “No,” he said. “It is much more than that, Sene. Or, at least it is for me. You are only the second woman in all the world and time I have ever been with. I do not take that lightly.”

“The _second_?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “I am a man of weakness, sure—the booze, the drugs. That all takes the edge off. But none of my vices has ever been women. I never though of women as something to use, something on which to take out my frustrations. I leave that sort of brunt to the substances. I married young, and I married for life. Of course, I didn’t realize that I’d get two lives. That is a kink in the rope, but I’ll stick to my code.”

Somewhere outside, there was a lark. It swallowed up the night with its haunting melodies. “You’re so—” Sene was lost for words. “That is so unexpected,” she said.

He just smirked. But she could see that he was not satisfied with their conversation. He seemed concerned. There was something serious behind his eyes. “Men bury their sadness, and their secrets, inside you,” he said. “That is what you said. That disturbs me. Is this why you left Abelas?”            

She slouched a little, looked down at her hands. “No,” she said. “He never did that. He was full of pain and secrets, yes, but he told them to me. All of it. He trusted me and opened up. He never used me to feel alive, or to feel real. He just wanted to be with me.”

“But this other man,” he said. “The one you mentioned downstairs. Solas. You believe that he used you? Before Abelas.”

Sene shrugged then. The sound of that word, it could still undo her. _Solas._ Fucking Solas. And then the simple fact that it upset her upset her even more. She was afraid of losing her composure, so she looked away, on the verge of tears all of a sudden and annoyed as fuck, as the last thing she wanted was to derail the evening by crying in front of Inquisitor Ameridan.

Ameridan had ceased his exploration of her body now. He just let his hands rest, heavy on her freckled thighs. He sighed. “I am sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I would like to ask you more questions,” he said. “I think you might benefit from talking about this, but I need to ask your permission. I know what you said before about asking to ask, but I don’t want to upset you.”

“Ask,” she said, and she meant it, and she looked right at him, his very cool, green eyes. Or were they blue? The moon cast him in a chilly light, but he was handsome, in this rugged, weathered sort of way that comforted her.

He took a deep breath, rubbed his hands up and down her thighs, once. Their skin made a noise like a sand paper. “What happened between you and Solas? Based on your age and the way you cling to him, I am guessing that he was your first love.”

“He was,” she said, nodding slowly. “He was my first—everything. He loved me. But he betrayed me. That is what happened.”

“Did he lie with another woman?”

This almost made her laugh for all of its old fashioned simplicity. “No,” she said. “Nothing like that.”

“Then what was it?”

She took a deep breath. It was weird, the way she felt now. She heard the lark singing outside again and thought about changing the subject. But she didn’t. “When we first got together, he was not honest with me, about who he was,” she said. “That, in and of itself, is not what hurts. He is an ancient elf, and I understand why he kept his secrets. They were big, big secrets.” She sort of traced her fingers through Ameridan’s dark chest hair, slowly. It was the most she’d ever seen on a man—or any man she’d been with. Like the fur of a warm animal, a warm body beneath her. “But he broke up with me, while we were still very deep in the Inquisition and its mission, and he never told me why. I know that he loved me. I was young, but I was never an idiot. It was just that—his intentions were all fucked up. I learned that later, and how he used the Inquisition. How he—he used me. I don’t know what he was thinking or feeling. Why he couldn’t find the courage to trust me. I don’t think he meant to use me. I must not have been worth his trust.” She squeezed her eyes shut. She did not cry. When she opened them again, Ameridan was looking right at her, very intent.

“War was the landscape of his betrayal,” he said. “Is he your enemy now?”

She nodded, but then she shrugged. “I don’t know. He disappeared after the Inquisition was finished with its…prime objective. I didn’t see him again for two years. And when I did, and he finally told me the truth—even though parts of it I had already learned—it changed me. Before that, I was just heartbroken. I was moving on. I had found someone else.”

“That is Abelas,” said Ameridan. “The man I met at the temple.”

She nodded. She looked away, and she could feel the hair on her head curling inward, like the room was getting warmer. Outside, the lark had stopped its singing, and the moon had risen out of sight. “After seeing Solas again, I just—I changed.”

“How did you change.”

“I started…hating people.” She looked at him, her heart beating like a bird, flapping its wings against a metal cage in her chest. “I hate my friends, my family, my clan, my advisors. I hate them, because they are just reminders. And I look at Abelas, and I see the truth—I am not the girl I was before, and he says he understands but I’m too terrified to test that. And so I hate myself, because I used to be different, and I used to be happy. Now I just let people down, and I push them away, but they keep coming back. They keep saying they’ll wait for me, even when I don’t deserve them.”

“You do deserve them,” said Ameridan. He tightened his grip on her. “You’re the Inquisitor. You’re the hero of the story. You deserve everything and anything that you want. This is only a trial, Sene. You have to see that for what it is. And so what if you’ve changed? That’s what people do.”

She just stared at him. She had nothing left to say. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to be told what to do. She just wanted him to tell her what to do. “I think I forgot how to be a person,” she said.

“That is why you’re here? In the dregs of the Frostbacks, with me?”

She shrugged. “It’s not about you.”

He smoothed one big hand up the center of her body then, and like he was pulling all the light out of the room, he seemed to anchor her to the earth, and the sensation was so strong, she sat up straight. He held her chin in his hand, he looked at her like he could not believe what she was saying, and yet, like he related to her so hard and on so many levels, the realization was too much to bear. “What do you want?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you, Sene. Forget your friends. Forget your organization. Forget your boyfriend and your cosmic unrest. Forget the long term. What do _you_ want? Right now.”

They were close to each other now. Somehow, he’d risen up beneath her, and she was still in his lap, but he’d sat up so that they were eye to eye. He smelled very good. He smelled like a man. “I just want to be here,” she said, looking right at him, like she was searching—waiting for him to tell her that this was okay. Because she had lost her sense of what was okay. “With you. It’s easy, being here with you. You didn’t know me before. You only know me now. I’m glad that I came here.”

“Good,” he said.

The atmosphere—it changed then. The room seemed to become darker, and it was like time had gone out the window. She had known mages who could stop time, but this was not magic. It was just her wild perception as she stared at him, hard, and waited to see what happened next.

“I would like to touch you again,” he said. He still held her face in his hand. “What I would like to happen, it will be easier, I think, if I touch you.”

He was so proper. So chivalrous and so assertive. She did not hesitate. She nodded, and he nodded, too. She was not entirely sure what he meant, but she had not been lying before when she said she trusted him. Sene did not tell lies. She did not know how.

She watched then, as he removed his palm from her cheek, and he brought his thumb to his lips. He wet it, generously, and then he lowered his hand out of her view and he touched her. In slow, small, agonizing circles. She melted toward him, placed her hands on his wide shoulders, and breathed. She just gave in. It was so easy. She could feel the sheet between them, soaking through and warm, and she could feel his heavy shaft, full hard now and pressed to her inner thigh, but he paid no attention to this. She wanted to put him back inside of her, but this was impatience, and he would not permit her to resituate just yet.

“Permission to instruct,” he said. “Inquisitor.”

She inhaled, exhaled. She liked this game. “Permission granted,” she said.

“If at any time, you would like to stop,” he said. “Just say no.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Repeat after me,” he said. He was filled with concentration, building her, but slowly. He held her firmly to him in the sheets.

She seemed confused. “What?”

“I said, repeat after me. Do you understand?”

She nodded now, catching on. “Yes,” she breathed. “I understand. And yes, okay.”

“ _I am worthy_ ,” he said.

Her eyes were shut tight, and so was her pink mouth. She said nothing at first. So then, he eased off. He pulled back his thumb and pressed it to her thigh until her eyes fell open and she searched him. “Would you like to stop?”

“Don’t stop,” she said.

So he teased her, barely grazing her clit with the tip of his thumb until her breath hitched, way high up, and he became serious. “ _I am worthy,_ ” he said. “Repeat it, Sene.”

She stared at him. “I am worthy,” she said.

“Good,” he said, smiling, and he started up again, slow, wet, until her breath was ragged, and she sort of squeaked. “Now say, _I am deserving._ ”

This time, she understood, and she nodded like she was gathering her courage and her voice, swallowing hard, pressing her forehead into his. The pleasure was loud inside of her, like a drum. It was warm. “I am deserving,” she said.

“Again.”

"I am deserving.”

He nodded. It was good. This feeling—holding her accountable to the things she deserved, and the things she needed to say out loud, it satisfied him. She gave very easily. She wanted saving, and this satisfied him as well. “Very good, Sene,” he said. “Very good.”

But she was soft and lost against him now. He wanted badly to enter her, but he had to finish her first. Bringing her to this point, it was like a primal meeting of their hearts, even more so than before when it was all just hands and mouths and looking and grasping and needing. It was hungry. This was something else. In that moment, he was so resigned to his existence that he was happy to simply be the thing that Sene wanted and nothing more, her avenue to letting go of all this bullshit that had happened to her.

She moaned, her breathing harsh at his neck.

“Are you close, Sene.”

“Yes.”

“Let go,” he said. He picked up her chin with his free hand. It was gentle. Everything about him was gentle, even when it was not. He commanded her eyes. “Just let go. Be with me,” he went on. “In this moment alone. You’re safe. I am your equal. I will never judge or use you. Come, Sene, and in your ecstasy, just let go. Release.”

He pressed into her with just one finger, slowly—and he brought her up in a way that he sort of knew would complete her. She crumbled as she came against his hand, loudly and forcefully, small spasms, and he watched, rapt, wanting but never needful. It took a long time for her to finish as she stretched her head back, and then dropped it forward once more. As she came down, she found his eyes and locked him into a deep kiss, and even as he had previously sought to instruct her, he came undone now, in that moment as she kissed him. He was so unaccustomed to the way that she could so quickly take control—this particular kind of aggression that drew him hard, and he allowed himself to yield to her, and for just a moment, he wanted her to fuck him right off a cliff.

Then, as if she could read his mind, she opened her eyes and broke their kiss, and she had her palms on his cheeks, and she looked at him with an utmost earnestness in her heart. “Can we have sex again?” she said.

And he laughed. He found it inside of him to laugh, despite everything, as he bit right down and clenched his jaw, and his cock fucking ached, like a creature all its own, and he nodded and said, “Yes. Gods yes.”

And she became hurried, and she reached down and repositioned him, and rose up and then sank, and he slid so peacefully into her. He could enjoy it now, for what it was, and how it felt, and he did not have to hurry, because they’d already done it once, and it was good, and it felt good, and the second time was better because of this. Once they were joined, he went to his back, and she sort of balled up on top of him and kissed him and put her hands into his hair, and he held her hips down and fucked upward, a few times, sort of fast, pumping into her until he could feel himself bottom out, and she squeaked, and then it was both of them, just breathing and fucking in the secondhand light from the moon as it reflected off the snow on the mountains. Like glass. And the lark was quiet. The animals rattled off in the valley below—wolves and things, spiders and rabbits and cultists in leather masks as they bowed at the altar of their weird, old god. In the form of a dragon, a prison.

Ameridan came hard into her, everything he had left, and the ceiling went blue. There were fireflies in her hair as he came inside of her. Like magic, moving from the inside out. These little buzzing shapes, and how they were born from his magic, they were things he hadn’t made in centuries. Not since he’d last felt satisfied, or warm, or needed. And when they were finished, she was like this resilient melody. She bounced back into the world, like she was healed. Of course this was not true, but in some ways, it had to be. She kissed him and went out of the room to go pee again, because that was apparently what she did, and while she was gone, he just lie there, staring, point blank, into the ceiling. And he thought about anguish and the old ways and Telana and the place where he was born. There had been cows, he remembered. Cows and chickens, and a blue barn. He thought of his mother. It was an idle thought, out of nowhere, not much, but there was something, like a flash, and he had not thought of her in such a long time, not since before. Why now? He thought that, too. Maybe it was because of Sene. Sene and the way she looked. Her curly, red hair. It reminded him. He remembered how his mother had used to curl her hair in the mornings with this contraption that she would heat with her magic. A _curling iron_. That was what she’d called it. A fucking curling iron. Such an odd phrase to remember. He met Telana when he was nineteen years old. They married inside of a year. She had very straight hair. She never curled her hair. Or did she? How the years can change you.

He dozed off. When he woke up, Sene was back beside him, asleep on her stomach, long and breathing deep and even. She had one arm linked into his, and this was such a relief, and outside the moonlight had been washed from the sky, and it was all purple. He fell back to sleep as he watched her breathe, and as he drifted, he felt cleansed, and new, like he never had been before, and he could hear his mother’s voice in his mind then, this old sound that he could barely make out, and just those two stupid words over and over again. _Curling iron._ _Curling iron._ Some breath of life. Some incantation with the coming of the dawn as he slept.


End file.
